1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer readable information recording medium storing a printing control program, a printing control apparatus, a printing control method and a printing system, using a job definition format (JDF).
2. Description of the Related Art
A company in the commercial printing industry, which receives printed pages (a catalog, an advertisement or the like) from a customer, generates printed output pages requested by the customer from the printed pages, delivers the thus generated printed output pages to the customer and receives a payment from the customer, carries out plural processes from the reception of the printed pages to the delivery of the printed output pages. The plural processes from the reception of the printed pages to the delivery of the printed output pages include, for example, a reception of printed pages from the customer, a reception of printing conditions for the printed output pages from the customer, a prepress process such as a color change, a layout change and a binding position change, proofing for the customer to check the prepress result, a printing process, a post-press process (post-process) such as binding the printed output pages, compression bonding of the printed output pages or the like after the printing process, and delivery of the printed output pages to the customer. It is noted that the plural processes from the reception of the printed pages to the delivery of the printed output pages may increase or decrease depending on the printing conditions for the printed output pages requested by the customer.
In the related art of the commercial printing industry, there are many orders from customers to carry out printing in large quantities, and the above-mentioned plural processes from the reception of the printed pages to the delivery of the printed output pages, for example, are carried out to execute the many orders. Further, in many cases, for such orders of printing in large quantities, printing conditions from customers for printed output pages are fixed. Therefore, in the commercial printing industry in the related art, printed output pages requested by customers are generated through cycles in which a large quantity (lot) of printing is carried out according to fixed printing conditions, and after the printing for the lot is finished, another lot of printing is carried out after the printing conditions are changed.
In the printing cycles, the above-mentioned plural processes from the reception of the printed pages to the delivery of the printed output pages are carried out in many cases when printing conditions from customers for printed output pages are changed. Therefore, in a case where printing conditions from customers for printed output pages are not changed, a commercial printer can carry out printing continuously according to the fixed printing conditions, and thus, it is possible to carry out printing in large quantities with high efficiency.
Recently, a print on demand (POD) market has appeared in which a commercial printer delivers a relatively small lot of printed output pages to a customer with a short delivery time. In the POD market, orders from plural customers are received in many cases. As a result, in the POD market, in many cases, printed pages sent to a commercial printer from customers include many different types of printed pages, or printing conditions requested by the customers for printed output pages include many different conditions.
Furthermore, recently, digitizing of printed pages has flourished, and a computer has been used to control the generation of printed output pages. For example, workflow techniques of sending printed pages from a customer in a form of electronic data to a printer via a communication network and/or controlling the above-mentioned plural processes from reception of printed pages to delivery of printed output pages have appeared. For example, according to the workflow techniques, there is a configuration in which printing operations in the above-mentioned plural processes from reception of printed pages to delivery of printed output pages are defined by JDF, and the printing operations are controlled in a printing system.
JDF is a standard widely used for providing information concerning processing of a print job. JDF is based on extensible markup language (XML). Data having a JDF form (hereinafter, simply referred to as JDF) is usually included in an object file called a job ticket.
JDF is associated with printing data for a print job by a description in a job ticket. JDF included in a job ticket includes any number of JDF elements. JDF elements are organized as a hierarchical tree structure. JDF elements define printing parameters concerning a print job for printing.
Some printing parameters may be designated by plural branches of the hierarchical structure. Further, some printing parameters may be designated in an equivalent form using any of plural duplicate JDF elements in the hierarchical structure.
As examples of printing parameters, paths for resources, rendering parameters, layout options, other available printing options, and media parameters for printing, may be cited. Paths for resources identify printing data to be used for printing. Rendering parameters indicate options for rendering various targets concerning a print job. Layout options include, for example, N-up, duplex, and so forth. Media parameters include, for example, a size, a weight, a color and the forth of a sheet of paper to be used for printing.
Many existing printer apparatuses do not support functions that directly process JDF. However, existing printer apparatuses support functions that process data having a form of page description language (PDL) (hereinafter, simply referred to as PDL).
For example, techniques of converting JDF into PDL for the purpose that existing printer apparatus can use JDF are known (for example, see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2009-271927).